Russia shows off conventional and nuclear military might in drills — and raises tensions with NATO

Russian plane herd There, the authorities see as a deliberate provocation.

NATO answers Supporting the Alliance’s air defenses Eastern wing.

Moscow exhibits traditional and nuclear military power in the long -term exercises with Belarus for warning the West Against sending foreign troops To Ukraine.

Since the US-Russian Summit meeting in Alaska could not bring peace to Ukraine, these events-only increased tensions in East Europe.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, days after the common maneuvers with Belarus arrived. Latest Sweeping exercisesNATO members, called “Zapad 2025” – or “West 2025, are worried that limiting Poland, Latvia and Lithuania to the West.

Among the maneuvers, nuclear bombardment planes and warships, thousands of soldiers and hundreds of war vehicles that simulate the common response to an enemy attack -including options including the new options of Russia, which are planned for the use of nuclear weapons – Medium -range ballistic missile, ORESHNİK.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte referred to the hypersonic missiles of Moscow, and said that Spain or Britain are more safe than Estonia or Lithuanian neighbors.

“Let us admit that we all live in the eastern wing of 32 countries,” he said in Brussels.

Anniversary of Russia’s nuclear weapon policy

A year ago this month Putin is a Revision of Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, To state that the traditional attack of any country supported by a nuclear energy to Russia will be accepted as a common attack on the country. This threat aimed to clearly prevent the West from allowing Ukraine to shoot Russia. Longer range weapons And for possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, it seems to significantly reduce the threshold.

This doctrine puts Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Russia said that Battlefield deployed his nuclear weapons to Belarus, Station Oreshnik Missiles There too this year.

The Zapad 2025 exercise comes with Russia’s 3½ -year -old war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump, despite the peace agreement and Putin in Alaska on August 15th.

On September 10, two days before the maneuvers begin, about 20 Russian drones He flew to Poland’s airspace. Moscow refused to target Poland, and the officials in Belarus claimed that the drones were deviated after the stuck by Ukraine, while the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “It has been a“ provocation çıkan that has brought us all closer to a conflict since World War II.

Rutte called Moscow’s action as “reckless” for the alliance announced a new “Eastern watch” attempt to support air defenses in the region. In addition to Poland, “Drones violate our airspace in Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.”

Putin’s Oreshnik threat

When Russia first used Oreshnik against Ukraine in November 2024, Putin warned that he could use the West against his allies, who allowed him to hit Russia with longer -range missiles.

Putin praised Oreshnik’s multiple war headings that the Machicism dived at speeds up to 10 and could not be captured and that many of them used in a traditional strike could be as destructive as a nuclear attack. The Russian state media praised Oreshnik’s reaching an air base in Poland only 11 minutes and 17 minutes to reach the NATO center in Brussels. There is no way to know that it does not have a nuclear or traditional war title before hitting the target.

He said that Russia has begun to produce Oreshnik. Before this month’s exercises, Belarus Defense Minister Viktor Khrin, nuclear weapons and Oreshnik missiles, “planning to use” said they would include. It was not clear that any Oreshnik was not really deployed in war games.

The Russian Ministry of Defense published the video of nuclear bombardment aircraft as part of the exercises spreading from Belarus, which limits NATO members Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, where sea assets implemented the launch of nuclear missiles, including the hypersonic zircle missile.

The Soviet period ‘nuclear castle’ is rebuilding

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko In December, he said his country had several dozen Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles that can destroy all cities, less powerful tactical weapons have a brief range of use against the troops on the battlefield.

The renewed Russian nuclear doctrine said Moscow could use nuclear weapons with traditional weapons that threaten “sovereignty and/or regional integrity” against Russia and Belarus.

Russian and Belaruslu officials made contradictory statements about who controlled the weapons. When the distribution was first announced, Lukashenko Belarus would be responsible, but the Russian army would maintain control.

While signing Security pact In December, Lukashenko and Putin said that even with Russia’s controlling Oreshniks, Moscow would allow Minsk to choose targets. The missiles said that if they are used against Belarus closer targets, they could have a significant heavier load.

If Moscow decides to use them to use tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, Russian aircraft and missiles will allow them to reach the potential goals in Ukraine more easily and quickly. It is also expanding Russia’s ability to target several NATO allies in Eastern and Central Europe.

“The placement of weapons close to the borders with the West is sending a signal, even if they do not have plans to use it,” Andrey Baklitskiy, Senior Researcher of the United Nations Institute of Disarmament Studies, said.

Alexander Alesin, a Minsk -based military analyst, said that the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus turned him into a Baltik and Poland and Ukraine into a ör balcony on the West ”that threatens.

He said that the planned Oreshnik distribution would threaten the whole of Europe to return to the Cold War Scenario when Belarus is an advanced base for Soviet nuclear weapons to Europe.

In the Cold War, Belarus hosted more than half of the Soviet arsenal of intermediate intermediate missiles under the cover of the deep forests. Under the 1987 intermediate -range nuclear forces agreement, which was terminated in 2019, such land -based weapons, which could reach between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles), were banned.

“Belarus served as a nuclear castle in the Soviet periods, Ale he said.

The USSR said that some have built about 100 intensively reinforced storage for nuclear weapons in Belarus, some of which were renewed for holding Russian nuclear weapons.

“They have restored a few dozen storage spaces and actually hold the nuclear war titles only two or third, they will have to predict where they are potential enemy,” he added.

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Estonia, Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn contributed to this report.

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Associated Press is supported by the New York Carnegie Corporation and the Outiter Foundation. AP is only responsible for all content.

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Additional AP Scope of Nuclear Landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/